New Year's Welcoming Exhibition

This year's autumn was exhibition crazy. The magic of this craziness lies in the fact that I wasn't expecting all those exhibitions. I planned the big one, currently in Velenje, but I had no idea there would be so many college exhibitions, including the last one. We usually have a New Year's Welcoming party when students and teachers get together to celebrate the end of the year and welcome the New Year. This year's party was a little different as it included the exhibition. Students had to choose one of their paintings to exhibit, preferably without teacher's help. It was sort of self-evaluating exercise. The result was a huge amount of paintings, drawing and installation pieces, exhibited all over the school. What surprised me most were all the people who came: teachers, students, their parents, friends, partners, small children running around ... There were home-made chocolates and mulled wine smelling of cinnamon. Or perhaps I just imagined cinnamon ... No I didn't. Cinnamon was definitely there. :-)

The painting I chose to exhibit was a first in which I started to abstract letters, the first to be made in this style and the last to be shown. It strikes me as an end of an era, so to speak. I've answered all the questions I was asking myself with these paintings. Or rather the answers came without the questions being asked. I became aware of them only when the answers came. This is all right, albeit unexpected.

*

Letošnja jesen je bila nabita z razstavami. Lepota tega je v dejstvu, da jih sploh nisem pričakovala. Kar pojavile so se. Velenjska razstava je bila načrtovana, druge ne, vsaj ne z moje strani. Za zadnjo, prednovoletno, sem izvedela iz pogovora z dekanom, ko je rekel, nekaj kot: decembra bo razstava na šoli in tudi ti boš prinesla eno sliko. Po navadi imamo na šoli žurko ob koncu leta, da nazdravimo preteklim uspehom in pozdravimo novo leto, ki naj bo vsaj toliko uspešno kot je bilo preteklo. Letošnja žurka je bila drugačna od prejšnjih, tokrat smo imeli tudi razstavo. Vsak študent je moral sam izbrati delo, ki bi ga želel razstaviti, po možnosti brez prišepetavanj učiteljev. Nekaj kot samoocena. Nabralo se je ogromno slik, risb in instalacij, ki smo jih razporedili po ateljeju, predprostoru in povsod, kjer smo jih lahko. Kar me je resnično presenetilo je bilo število ljudi, ki so prišli: učitelji, študentje, njihovi starši, prijatelji, sorodniki, mali otroci, ki so se igrali pod slikami ... Marta je prinesla domače čokolade, kuhano vino pa je dišalo po cimetu. No, morda sem si cimet izmislila ... nisem, vino je res dišalo po cimetu.

Slika, ki sem jo izbrala za razstavo je bila prva od slik, v katerih sem abstrahirala črke. Prva v tem stilu in zadnja, ki sem jo razstavila. Utrnilo se mi je, da je to dejanje podobno zaključku nekega obdobja. S tem načinom slikanja sem si odgovorila na vse vprašanja. Ali bolje, odgovori so prišli sami, ne da bi si morala postaviti vprašanja. Tega sem se zavedla šele takrat, ko so prišli odgovori ... da ni vprašanj. Tudi to je v redu, čeprav nepričakovano.